Culver City : City Sues West L.A. College

The city of Culver City has filed a lawsuit against West Los Angeles College charging that the college’s rehabilitation and expansion plan violates state environmental laws.

West Los Angeles College, one of nine two-year colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District, plans to build an aerospace training center and a gymnasium on the rolling 69-acre campus at the base of the Baldwin Hills just outside Culver City. Access to the campus is through Culver City streets.

The lawsuit alleges that the environmental impact report for the college’s five-phase, master development plan is outdated and no longer reflects current conditions, especially when it comes to traffic. The environmental report was approved by the community college district in 1989.

But it wasn’t until fall, 1992, that funding became available for the first phase. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring, 1993.

The city will drop the lawsuit if agreement can be reached on updating the environmental report to include impacts of future phases of construction. The city also wants to regulate extracurricular use of the gymnasium.

“It has never been our intention to stop the build-out of the West Los Angeles College campus, but rather to assure that build-out is adequately analyzed and mitigated,” said Culver City Mayor James D. Boulgarides. “We hope to continue discussions with the district and settle outstanding concerns about build-out before either party must prepare for lengthy and costly litigation.”